Paizo Announces New Irrevocable Open RPG License To Replace the OGL

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Paizo, the maker of Pathfinder, has just announced a new open license for use with RPGs. The license will not be owned by Paizo - or by any TTRPG company, and will be stewarded by Azora Law, a company which represents several tabletop gaming companies, until it finds its home with an independent non-profit. This new license is designed to be irrevocable.

We believe, as we always have, that open gaming makes games better, improves profitability for all involved, and enriches the community of gamers who participate in this amazing hobby. And so we invite gamers from around the world to join us as we begin the next great chapter of open gaming with the release of a new open, perpetual, and irrevocable Open RPG Creative License (ORC).

The new Open RPG Creative License will be built system agnostic for independent game publishers under the legal guidance of Azora Law, an intellectual property law firm that represents Paizo and several other game publishers. Paizo will pay for this legal work. We invite game publishers worldwide to join us in support of this system-agnostic license that allows all games to provide their own unique open rules reference documents that open up their individual game systems to the world. To join the effort and provide feedback on the drafts of this license, please sign up by using this form.

In addition to Paizo, Kobold Press, Chaosium, Green Ronin, Legendary Games, Rogue Genius Games, and a growing list of publishers have already agreed to participate in the Open RPG Creative License, and in the coming days we hope and expect to add substantially to this group.

The ORC will not be owned by Paizo, nor will it be owned by any company who makes money publishing RPGs. Azora Law’s ownership of the process and stewardship should provide a safe harbor against any company being bought, sold, or changing management in the future and attempting to rescind rights or nullify sections of the license. Ultimately, we plan to find a nonprofit with a history of open source values to own this license (such as the Linux Foundation).

Read more on Paizo's blog.

 

[JEB]

The 5e OAR books are directly licensed from Wizards.

My DCC RPG (4th/Kickstarter printing) contains the OGL license text.

Goodman also publishes 5E products using the OGL (and has done so both before and after there was a 5E SRD).

There's also a specific license for Dungeon Crawl Classics compatibility: Publish DCC and MCC Compatible Supplements On Your Own|Goodman Games

So Goodman has its fingers in a lot of pies.

 

[Nylanfs]

Because of my players...

we play 5e with PHB only, no feats, and spell cards and they still find a way to forget which die to roll to attack in-between turns and give me the dead-fish-eyes when I as if their spell require a save or a spell attack roll

So no way in hell I'd be able to push them though character creation without at least 2-3 of them jumping through a window or trying to slice their own throat with a spoon!

Maybe PCGen?

 

[Von Ether]

I am going to ask the stupid question. System agnostic? So an ORC with no SRD?

 

[W'rkncacnter]

I am going to ask the stupid question. System agnostic? So an ORC with no SRD?

without an inherent SRD, but i would guess that paizo and every publisher signing on is agreeing to use the ORC (when it's finished) to release SRDs for their stuff (pf2 in paizo's case, the black flag project for kobold press, etc).

 

[Reynard]

I am going to ask the stupid question. System agnostic? So an ORC with no SRD?

It means it is not a license to make a particular game system open. it is meant to be used with any system that the creator or publisher wants to make open.

 

[Abstruse]

Good post.

Just for clarity: Open Gaming Content does not need to be released via a System Reference Document, and usually isn't. The Open Gaming Content is in the specific work published under the Open Gaming license, and is designated in that work (along with what ISN'T OGC).

True. The SRD is Open Gaming Content (or open gaming content lower case if it's using a different license where "Open Gaming Content" isn't a defined term in the license), but not all OGC has to be part of an SRD. SRDs are just a very easy way to state what is OGC.

 

[Abstruse]

I am going to ask the stupid question. System agnostic? So an ORC with no SRD?

ORC will just be the license. It will be the legal framework for people to create open content to share or to use content that has been released under ORC. An SRD can be released under ORC (once the license is complete and available), and from the looks of things we'll likely be getting ORC SRDs for Pathfinder 2nd Edition and Basic Roleplay at the very least.

 

[JEB]

ORC will just be the license. It will be the legal framework for people to create open content to share or to use content that has been released under ORC. An SRD can be released under ORC (once the license is complete and available), and from the looks of things we'll likely be getting ORC SRDs for Pathfinder 2nd Edition and Basic Roleplay at the very least.

Likely Savage Worlds as well, based on Pinnacle signing on.

 

[FormerLurker]

It's a neat idea but... can't you just use the various Creative Common licenses? About The Licenses - Creative Commons
I know Eclipse Phase uses them, so it's possible for gaming.

 

[Zardnaar]

I mean, yes, but outside of groups like @Zardnaar ’s who go all-in on bonus optimization, you rarely have to account for more than one of these at a time (and if you are in such a group, clearly managing them isn’t a problem for you). It’s really less about the total number of possible sources of modifiers and more about the cognitive load of having to manage the modifiers you can typically expect to have.

That’s about what I figured. Definitely sounds more up my alley.

And I do think that reality of how often they actually come up is the biggest factor.

Mostly theorycraft atm tbh. More casual group than 2015